


Beyond Reason or Doubt

by Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Rewriting the Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff/pseuds/Writings_of_a_Hufflepuff
Summary: Blood was thicker than water, people often told her, and she would protect her family, she would rebuild it and reclaim it. She would tear down every cultist that stood in her way, that threatened the family she was putting back together again. She would kill for them. She would die for them, but a certain Spartan spy had shown her that family did not have to come from blood, that love...love was stronger than any blood bond she had.
Relationships: Brasidas/Kassandra (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Beyond Reason or Doubt

Kassandra has always been loyal to her family, even her father Nikolaus. When she met him again in Megaris she could not bring herself to kill him, she still loved him, and part of her, the very Spartan part understood that he’d done what he had to do even if it broke his heart to do it. She could not bring herself to kill him when her heart still screamed  _ pater,  _ when the little girl she had been still wanted to wrap her arms around his legs while he called her his pride. She forgave Alexios the moment she saw him, she knew she would save him, she knew she would work to bring her brother back despite all the things the cult had done and all things that had twisted him from her baby brother. Just as she knew she would find her  _ mater  _ again, to bring her back to her, to rebuild her small family no matter how broken or tragic. She even tried to bring Stentor into her life, the annoying adopted brother that he was, she offered an olive branch at every turn, an open hand. 

Blood was thicker than water, people often told her, and she would protect her family, she would rebuild it and reclaim it. She would tear down every cultist that stood in her way, that threatened the family she was putting back together again. She would kill for them. She would die for them, but a certain Spartan spy had shown her that family did not have to come from blood, that love...love was stronger than any blood bond she had. That her family would only be as strong as the love they had for each other, not for the blood that ran through their veins or marriages that bound them. 

She loved her  _ pater _ despite all he’d done. She loved her  _ mater  _ despite her inability to protect her children. She loved her brother despite his madness, despite the anger and pain that welled inside him and that needed taming like a wild beast. But it was a hard love to have, it did not come easy, it required her to fight, to claw, tooth and nail, it exhausted her. No matter how worth it it was. But Brasidas’ love was not like that. He was easy to love and he loved easily. He was hard and laconic where needed, a great strategist, a great warrior, but he was soft as well. A kindness, a gentleness and an empathy that pervaded her every sense. He treated her not as a broken object or delicate item, not as a god or legend, but as someone who deserved the smiles, the jokes, the smirks, the compliments, and affirming nods. Someone that deserved a dressing down now and then. He treated her simply as Kassandra. 

Brasidas was not family by blood, and yet, he was just as important to her and she knew that the ease with which they fought together, the ease with which they spoke, the connection between them was more than she could ever explain or begin to understand. They fought together as if they’d trained together their whole life, each move was anticipated, each weakness of the other was compensated for, it was as if their minds were one, their bodies in sync. They kissed and fucked like they fought, in tune, in sync, knowing each step as if it was a perfectly rehearsed dance at Hyakinthia. 

Kassandra had slept with many people, laid with them bare. She had been physically vulnerable but never more and never had she felt as if her soul was meant for the other. Brasidas made her believe the stories, that two souls could be meant for each other, that wars were worth fighting for that sort of love. She understood for the first time why all those tragic love stories existed, because she too would kill for Brasidas, because she too would dive into the depths of Hades and pull him back out, because she too would rock the world and fight the gods for him. He was her heart, her being, he was hers and she was his. She felt it to her core. 

Their connection was deeper than anything she could understand, but she was grateful for it that day at Amphipolis, grateful that it drew her back to him at the moments that mattered most, that she could be the shield to his sword and spear. She had known, somewhere deep inside her, that her brother was still not himself, that he would attack the one person who mattered most to her in that moment, and she had known then. Blood was thicker than water, but love, her love for Brasidas, was even stronger.

“You are thinking too hard again,  _ phílos _ ” his voice draws her back from her thoughts. Back to the present with her cheek pillowed by his chest, strong fingers tracing over scars that each have a story. Each scar reminds her of how fragile mortality is, reminds her that Brasidas could have died years before he met her. He could have died in the Agoge. He could have been eaten by a wolf, killed by exposure, his neck broken by a fall or his insides speared during training. He could have died later, by Alexios’ hand, by a cultist or simply by an Athenian in battle. His life was filled with danger, war, death, and he could have been claimed at any moment.

He can sense her melancholy, her  _ lýpē _ , it permeates from her. He can feel it through her fingers, the soft lines she traces over scars that have long since healed. He can see it in the light tension across her strong back, a tension that would normally not be present in the morning, her bones normally lax, her skin and muscle pliant to his hands. He can hear it in the sharp intake of breath that she thinks she can hide, but she has never been able to hide anything from him. Not from that first dance in a burning warehouse in Korinthia. 

So he waits, like any good spy, any good general, any good soldier. He waits with fingers trailing over her spine, softly pushing at tense muscle and demanding their defeat. 

“Do you ever wonder...what...what if you…”, he waits patiently still, not presuming to fill in the gaps, letting her honeyed eyes meet his, sad and supplicant. He lifts a calloused, rough hand to cup her cheek, she sighs into the feeling, drawing strength from him to continue that thought that has haunted her since her dream that night. “What if you had died? What if we had never met or we had, but our time had been cut short...what...what if?”

The answer comes easy, “I do not,  _ agapētós mía _ ”. Brasidas pulls her up with him as he seats himself, hand slipping to the back of her head, gently pulling her forehead to press against his own. Their breath mingling, their noses brushing, the scent of the jasmine she bathes in surrounding his senses and bringing a soft smile to his lips. “I was always destined to meet you, I was always destined to be here with you, and so what ifs are pointless, if I was not meant to be here I would be buried somewhere with my shield.”

“For a Lacedaemonian you speak like a poet, General.” He sees the first hint of a smile, pulling at the scar across her lip, this close he couldn’t miss it and he considers it one of his greatest victories. To pull a smile from Kassandra had always been a pleasure to him, from the first meeting. To make a woman with so much trouble in her heart smile had always been worth the effort to him. Her smiles fill him with more pride than any military victory, an rousing defeat. 

“Only for you, Eagle Bearer, only ever you.”

Kassandra pulls herself closer to him, strong legs slipping around his hips, pressing them tightly together as she pushes her lips against his. She has never had to reach for him, not truly. Brasidas has always matched her in every way, he was an inch or so taller, a feat most men never managed, she never had to stretch or bend for him. Like every dance they did they knew how to give and take, how to spin around each other and dip and dive without floundering and it always took her breath away. He was made for her and she was made for him. The fates had weaved their tapestry centuries ago, had intertwined their fates like Kassandra would intertwin strands of her hair each morning. 

She pulls back with a smile, brushing fingers against the warmth of his cheeks and down to hold the back of his neck, “I am glad. I am glad that you and I were destined to meet”,  _ that you and I were destined to survive together _ , she leaves the last thought hanging in the air because it is true but does not need to be spoken. They both know that they were bound for a bloody life, Spartans both, born to feed wars with their own blood and that of their children, but they had survived...and their children would also. 

As if that thought was shared, Brasidas moved a gentle hand to her stomach, feeling the soft subtle curve that was growing each day, the proof that they had more than just survived, they had thrived. Their unborn child would be loved, protected, shielded by parents who had known loss, known the tragedy that family could bring. Kassandra swore she would protect their children to her dying breath and knew Brasidas felt the same. Their children would not die for Sparta, their children would not be thrown from a Mount Taygetos or torn apart by grief. Their children would play and laugh, learn how to fight from parents who loved them, know a happy house and a decidedly un-Spartan start to life. 

“I love you,  _ emós phyláttȯ _ , beyond reason or doubt, and I love them too.” He had been raised in blood and death, he had fought and killed, he had seen boys his age freeze, starve, be torn apart, he had grown in the harshness of Sparta, but that gentle spirit had stayed. A soft heart beneath the strong, harsh exterior of a Spartan General, a heart protected by a fierce mind and made for her. They were meant to meet, their hearts were meant to dance together, their hands supposed to touch. He was her sword, she his shield. 

“Beyond reason or doubt,  _ emós xíphos _ ”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> emós xíphos - My sword  
> emós phyláttȯ - Literally my guard, roughly my shield  
> agapētós mía - Dear one  
> lýpē - Sadness  
> phílos - Beloved, Darling


End file.
